A mutual friend of ours¹ asked me on the telephone, somewhat peremptorily, whether I would be lunching that day at a certain place which we both frequent. When I met him he showed a rather violent reaction to the visit of the Taoiseach and yourself to Herr Hempel.

He was appalled at what struck him as the diplomatic unwisdom of the Irish Government's action in regard to the death of Hitler.

Whether neutrality was a good or a bad thing, whether Hitler was an agreeable or disagreeable character, or even whether it was a good thing or not for Ireland that the United Kingdom had won the war, were questions not relevant to his present point. His point, which he put vehemently, was that England had won the war, that she now had it in her power to make conditions more easy or more difficult for Ireland in the future and that, consequently, it should be one of the first objects of the Irish Government to please English opinion so far as it was consistent with its own interests.

I said we were probably the best judges of what was consistent with our own interests. We had been neutral throughout the war; we had merely followed diplomatic usage and our own dignity required Ireland in the last act to conform to the protocol. Surely he must have known that the question of Hitler, the man – as distinct from the Head of a State – whatever his real character might or might not have been, never arose. Our friend's own experience, I should have thought, would have shown him repeatedly that what was morally indefensible nearly always turned out to be politically inept. He rejoined that in the case in point, there was no moral issue at all and no principle that mattered a damn. Protocol was not principle. It was made for man, not man for it. Nor could he see that any question of dignity arose. Even if it did, the practical disadvantages of doing what our Government had done would have seemed to him so immense that he would have brushed aside any question of national 'amour propre'.

Nobody deplored more than he did the abysmal ignorance of Ireland encountered so often in England but we had only ourselves to blame if we didn't protest, as he now did most vigorously, when our Government gave the English press, as it had done, such a champion opportunity to heap abuse and sneers on Mr. de Valera.

Subsequently to this luncheon talk, he called at this Office on 14th May and referred to Salazar who he said had come in for a good deal of criticism for opportunism for half-masting his flags on Hitler's death; but he had, at any rate, followed it up by making a speech to the Portuguese National Assembly in which he had said that although bleeding, Great Britain stood not only victorious but invincible and that she now appeared before the world among the greatest, as a veritable educator of peoples, a mother, and a leader of nations, etc.

Our friend thought that the Taoiseach ought to make a speech in which he should lay on kindly sentiments towards the British as thickly as possible. When I said that anyone who knew An Taoiseach knew that he would not make any such attempt to curry cheap favour with England, he answered that we should ignore, and not be afraid, of such sneers. The good would outbalance the bad. In case that looked cynical he thought that where the interests of the people of Ireland are concerned, we had no business unduly to obtrude personal or national feelings of consistency or dignity.

He could understand a policy which, so long as Germany was unbeaten, avoided offending her. But Germany was now beaten. The German State was in dissolution and it was not unlikely that any government of Germany during the future would curse the memory of Hitler. The effect of paying compliments on his death would, unless vigorous counter-action were taken, be to antagonise not only England and America and most of Europe, but antagonise German opinion as well.

He said that I could tell you what his views were. No doubt you would differ, as I had differed, but you wouldn't mistake his motive in stating these views as an Irishman, for you were too generous-minded to bear him a grudge for holding an opinion which he supposed would be in sharp conflict with your own.